Multilingual Learners

This study takes advantage of advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to build an idea detection model that can identify ideas grounded in students’ linguistic experiences. We designed adaptive, interactive dialogs for four explanation items using the NLP idea detection model and investigated whether they similarly support students from distinct language backgrounds. The curriculum, assessments, and scoring rubrics were informed by the Knowledge Integration (KI) pedagogy.

This study takes advantage of advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to build an idea detection model that can identify ideas grounded in students’ linguistic experiences. We designed adaptive, interactive dialogs for four explanation items using the NLP idea detection model and investigated whether they similarly support students from distinct language backgrounds. The curriculum, assessments, and scoring rubrics were informed by the Knowledge Integration (KI) pedagogy.

The limited availability of research instruments that reflect the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) restricts the field's understanding of whether and how teachers are making instructional shifts called for by the standards. The need for such instruments is particularly urgent with teachers of multilingual learners (MLs), who are called on to make shifts in how they think about and enact instruction related to both science and language.

This article presents results from a design experiment intended to develop students’ understanding of linear functions and rates of change in a linguistically diverse ninth grade classroom. The intervention focused on fostering classroom discussions. Students’ pre-post assessment gains were higher in the redesigned classrooms than in the pre-intervention classrooms. Additionally, multilingual students who were classified as English Learners (ELs) made larger gains than their non-EL peers, and the majority of student learning gains occurred on conceptually-focused items.

This resource collection includes lessons for nine different biology themes and content areas: matter and energy transformation, organization and development of living organisms, earth systems and patterns, energy, interdependence, heredity and reproduction, diversity and evolution of living organisms, the practice of science, and integration of knowledge and ideas. It also offers lessons for six different instructional elements: multiple modalities, funds of knowledge, collaboration, affirming identities, sociopolitical consciousness, and attention to language.

With a decade passing since the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), it is timely to reflect and consider the extent to which the promise of science teaching and learning that values and centers learners’ varied epistemologies for scientific sensemaking has been realized. We argue that this potential, in part, lies in the hands of our science education research community becoming aware and intentional with how we situate learners’ language-related resources and practices in our work.

This paper describes an innovative mathematics learning partnership that engages teachers and parents of multilingual children ages 7–10 from schools in underserved communities. At the center of this transformative work is the use of two complementary approaches to advancing equity in education– funds of knowledge and positioning theory. While both theories have been applied in mathematics education, they have not been integrated in a parent-teacher partnership program aimed at enhancing collaboration between multilingual families and teachers.

This paper describes an innovative mathematics learning partnership that engages teachers and parents of multilingual children ages 7–10 from schools in underserved communities. At the center of this transformative work is the use of two complementary approaches to advancing equity in education– funds of knowledge and positioning theory. While both theories have been applied in mathematics education, they have not been integrated in a parent-teacher partnership program aimed at enhancing collaboration between multilingual families and teachers.

This paper describes an innovative mathematics learning partnership that engages teachers and parents of multilingual children ages 7–10 from schools in underserved communities. At the center of this transformative work is the use of two complementary approaches to advancing equity in education– funds of knowledge and positioning theory. While both theories have been applied in mathematics education, they have not been integrated in a parent-teacher partnership program aimed at enhancing collaboration between multilingual families and teachers.